Shin Sang-ok, Kim Jong-il, and Choi Eun-hee in The Lovers and the Despot, a Magnolia Pictures release. Credit: PHOTO COURTESY OF MAGNOLIA PICTURES

Shin Sang-ok, Kim Jong-il, and Choi Eun-hee in The Lovers and the Despot, a Magnolia Pictures release.

Shin Sang-ok, Kim Jong-il, and Choi Eun-hee in The Lovers and the Despot, a Magnolia Pictures release. PHOTO COURTESY OF MAGNOLIA PICTURES

The documentary The Lovers and the Despot recounts one of the strangest chapters in the ongoing war between North and South Korea: the 1978 kidnapping of beloved South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee and her ex-husband filmmaker, Shin Sang-ok, by North Korean agents. The reason? To fulfill the movie-obsessed North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il’s ambitions of creating Asia’s best film studio.

Kathleen Richards is the former managing editor of The Stranger. Prior to joining The Stranger, she was the co-editor of the East Bay Express in Oakland, Calif., where she also wrote award-winning stories...